Matters were not helped much by Susan's looking over the fence just then and crying out abruptly: "Well, I declare!"
"Mrs. Ralston," said Lorenzo, not even blushing, "you're the very person we need this minute. I want to marry Jane, and she won't hear to it because of her father's debts. The debts are all right and everything's all right, only she won't believe it. I wish you'd climb the fence and help me persuade her, for although I know she'll end by marrying me, I've just set my heart on converting her to her own religion first."
Susan swung easily over the fence. "You're just right, Mr. Rath, you ought to marry her. She's the nicest person to have around the house that I ever saw; she's far too good to be a nurse. How much did your father owe, you Sunshine Jane, you? Maybe I can pay it. I will if I can."
"There," said Lorenzo; "see how easy it is to evolve money if you'd only trust a little?"
Jane looked at him and then at Susan. "I couldn't take your money, Auntie," said she, quite gently, but quite firmly. "And then, too," she added, with her roguish smile, "you've left it to Aunt Matilda."
"Yes, but dear," Susan's face became suddenly radiant, "you know I've been working your religion on her; maybe she isn't coming back at all; maybe something will happen; maybe she's going to be drowned or something like that in some perfectly right way."
"No," said Lorenzo soberly. "It isn't necessary to plan as to God's business at all. He knows. I don't think that Jane ought to take anybody's money; she ought to pay the debts with her own money, but I can't see why she can't trust and know it's coming."
"Because there's no place for it to come from," said Jane firmly.
"Unless Matilda—" Susan interposed.
"I believe I'm better at her religion than she is herself," said Lorenzo. "I declare, I believe that there's nothing that I can't get now. I wanted a house, and I worked just as the book said! I saw myself living cosily alone, and in less than a week I was living cosily alone. Now I want Jane with me in the house, and I mean to have her, and I shall have her, and there's no doubt about that; but I do wish—with all my heart—that she could rise to a higher plane."